Consider the Source
by Wilusa
Summary: Ben wants information from Lila...and offers a trade. Can be read as a standalone, or as a followup to 'The Unkindest Cut' and 'The Slippery Slope.'
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: Carnivale and its canon characters are the property of HBO and the show's producers; no copyright infringement is intended.

x

x

x

"Ben Hawkins 'would like to see me'?" There was barely controlled fury in Lila's voice. Drawing herself up to her full height, she glared down at Samson and said imperiously, "Then let him come to my trailer, an' knock on the door like a gentleman."

Samson gave an exasperated sigh. "He can't, Lila. I've explained to everyone that Hawkins is still in bad shape. Right now he can't even walk, an' movin' him around would be a bad idea."

She scowled. "If he could heal Jonesy's banged-up knee, an' what-all else they say was wrong with him, why can't he heal hisself?"

"Because o' the kind o' weapon he was wounded with." Samson added darkly, "An' if he could heal hisself, there's reasons why you wouldn't want him doin' it anywhere near this carnival."

She couldn't suppress a shudder. _There __**is**__ somethin' scary 'bout Hawkins..._

_Does he want to see me 'cause o' that rumor I tried to spread, that he'd actually died?_

But the rumor hadn't done him any harm - no one had believed it, with Ruthie, Gabe, and Libby tending to him, and being seen briefly every day. Their anxiety over his condition couldn't have been faked. Why would he make an issue of it?

"He just wants to ask you a couple questions, Lila." The tone was gentler now, almost wheedling.

"All right, all right," she said grudgingly. "May as well get it over with.

"But I'm not promisin' to answer his questions!"

x

x

x

Ben Hawkins looked terrible.

He was being cared for in Ruthie's trailer - reportedly, because he and Samson had somehow gotten rid of the furniture the former "Management," now deceased, had left behind in the trailer he'd shared with Samson. But it had been made clear to everyone that Hawkins was the _new_ Management, Samson's boss.

He didn't look capable of managing anything.

He was sitting up, in Ruthie's most comfortable chair. And he was dressed, in a clean if near-threadbare t-shirt and faded jeans. But he was skeleton-thin - eyes sunken, face ashen. His left arm rested on a pillow. A blue-stained wrapping covered the swollen upper arm; vividly blue veins scarred the forearm, and the hand was curled into a loose fist. His right hand, fingers splayed, was pressed against the left side of his belly. _As if_, Lila thought with a twinge of horror, _he's tryin' to hold hisself together an' keep his insides from spillin' out_. She knew that under his hand was another bandaged wound, worse than the one that had crippled his arm.

No one had bothered to strive for a more normal appearance by putting shoes or socks on his feet.

But his voice was level, and stronger than she'd expected, when he said, "Thank you for comin' over, Lila."

"Uh - you're welcome. And, uh, hello, Ruthie."

Ruthie, sitting in a straight chair at Hawkins' side, gave a curt nod. Then she turned all her attention to him, seemingly poised to spring into action if he showed a sign of needing care.

No one invited Lila to sit. So she remained standing...and as the youth's eyes bored into her, she felt inexplicably cowed.

But then he gave a faint smile. "I got a proposition for you, Lila.

"I want to ask you two questions. After each o' them - if you give me what I think is an honest answer - I'll answer any one question, honestly, for you. How 'bout it?"

She thought for a second, then said cautiously, "Okay."

"Fine. First off" - his voice was steely now - "I know that for a while there, Lodz was able to 'possess' Ruthie. She's told me 'bout the lovemakin' in your bed."

Lila glanced at Ruthie, and saw that she hadn't flinched or changed expression. Evidently, so much had happened since then that she no longer found the incident embarrassing.

"Here's what I want to know," Hawkins continued. "Did Lodz give you any message for me?"

"No," Lila said at once. "The first time he got in Ruthie's body, he said, 'Where's the boy?' Soundin', I thought, angry. Then he lost control, an' Ruthie collapsed in a heap. After that, the only mention he made o' you was to tell me you'd killed him!"

More words came out in a rush. "You'd damn well better count that as an honest answer. It's the truth. There's no 'message' for you."

"That's fine," Hawkins said agreeably. "I ain't surprised the answer was no."

Now she felt a trifle cocky. "You didn't word that question very well. If the answer was yes, you'd have to use your second one to find out what the message was!"

Unruffled, he told her, "But then I woulda known all I need to know."

Having established that he was firmly in control, he said, "Go ahead. Hit me with _your_ first question."

She had it ready. "Did you kill Lodz? I'm pretty sure you did, but I want to hear you admit it."

He said calmly, "Yes. I strangled him. An' I'll even tell you more - Samson covered it up, just like Lodz claimed.

"But neither of us will ever admit it to anyone else."

Lila felt almost dizzy. On the one hand, she was relieved to have all doubt eliminated, to know she hadn't been making false accusations. But Hawkins' flat, unemotional recitation of the facts was unsettling. The teen with whom she'd once flirted outrageously now seemed...older, hardened, _alien_.

"Ready for my second question?"

"Oh! Uh, yes."

"When Lodz was possessin' Ruthie," Hawkins asked, "was he blind?"

That was easy. "Yes," she said at once. "Ruthie's eyes had a silvery glaze, just like his did when he was alive, an' I'm sure he couldn't see."

Hawkins nodded slowly. "All right. _That_ tells me all I need to know, too.

"Now ask me your second question. But...be careful. Be sure it's somethin' you really want answered."

She hesitated.

But then she decided she had to know.

"_Why_ did you kill Lodz?"

She thought she had a general idea of what had happened. Lodz - on Management's orders - had been trying to mentor young Hawkins, instruct him in the use of his powers. Hawkins had viewed the unwanted "mentoring" as harassment. But even if that was the whole story, she wanted a coherent explanation. One that would account for Management's having tolerated and excused the murder.

Hawkins sighed (which somewhat unnerved her). But then he said, "All right. I'll tell you.

"Ruthie - you'd better find Lila a chair. This may take a while."

x

x

x

When she was settled in the chair, Hawkins said, "What I'll have to do is first give you a short explanation, an' then make it clearer with a longer one.

"I wouldn't o' promised to answer any question if the whole carnival didn't already know I got powers, on account o' my healin' Jonesy -"

"I knew before then," Lila put in, with a trace of pride. "I knew you healed Gabe's busted arm - I saw the two o' you walkin' back from somewhere, his arm obviously okay, an' you stoppin' to tell him to put it back in the sling. Matter o' fact, I told Lodz."

Hawkins made a face. "Shit. An' I thought I was bein' so careful...

"Anyway, here's what you don't know. When I heal someone, I gotta do it by takin' life or health from somewhere else. Small healings usually kill a bunch o' nearby plants. When I healed Gabe I didn't know much about what I was doin', an' I thought I could avoid killin' plants if we waded out into a pond. I'd forgotten the fish. When I fixed his arm, dozens o' dead fish floated up to the surface!

"An' when I healed Jonesy? Whether or not you want to admit it, he _had_ been tarred an' feathered, an' was close to death. Way out in the desert, with no plants to speak of for miles around. I had to send Libby off to a safe distance, then wait till he was so near death that buzzards were closin' in, to feed on his remains. An' then I healed him - by killin' the buzzards."

By now Lila was thankful she was sitting. "Oh my God."

Suddenly, she remembered. "Right after Lodz disappeared, we learned Ruthie'd gotten bit by a snake...but by then, she was almost well. Damn you! Did you kill Lodz to heal Ruthie?"

She didn't care how Ruthie, listening in, might feel about that. _She_ was outraged.

But to her surprise, Hawkins said quietly, "No."

Eyes locked on hers, he went on to say, "I got another power, Lila, that can't – responsibly - be used often. _I can bring a person who's died within the last day or so back to life_. But it requires a different kind of 'exchange,' more than healing. I can only do it by deliberately killing another human.

"I've already told Ruthie all about this, so it's okay for me to tell you now. Ruthie was dead that night, Lila! The snakebite killed her. An' I killed Lodz to bring her back to life because _he'd murdered her_. The snake was in the bag o' mending you'd done for her, an' I know damn well you didn't put it there."

Lila wanted to scream a denial...or to launch herself at him, strangle _him_.

But she didn't do either of those things.

She found herself recalling a trip into town, when Lodz had left her and gone off to make a mysterious purchase. He never had told her what it was. But she'd noticed small holes in the box he carried back to the carnival. She'd assumed they'd been made accidentally, didn't render the box unusable. Those holes could have enabled a creature inside to breathe...

"Oh. Ohhh..." She sat quietly rocking, hands clamped over her mouth, staring at Hawkins with eyes she knew must be as round as saucers.

The tears would come later.

"That was the short explanation," he said gently. "Do you want the long one? That'll get into why _Lodz_ did what he did?"

Still speechless, she nodded.

"Okay. To begin with, Management was a person like me, with special powers. He understood, before I did, that we were alike. He knew our kind are put on earth for a purpose, to fight evil. Even if, given our druthers, we'd rather not get involved!

"An' this generation may be the most important of all. Management was only in his sixties, but he had a lot o' health problems, knew he couldn't live much longer. He needed to teach me things, make me accept my powers, prepare me to be his _successor_."

He hesitated, then said, "Uh, you may find this hard to believe. But I swear it's true. Now that he's dead an' I really am his successor, I...know things that he knew. That's how it works with our kind. When I need the knowledge, I know what he thought an' felt, even 'remember' what other folks said to him. You got that?"

She nodded. The earnestness in his eyes couldn't be denied.

"It woulda been simpler," he continued, "if he coulda just talked to me 'bout what I am, an' what he was tryin' to do. But like I said, he had health problems. Cancer. Old injuries. He'd been crippled for years. Remember what I said about healings? Takin' life or health from somewhere else?"

"Y-yes." Lila began to see where this was going. _Samson said that if Hawkins __**could**__ heal hisself, we wouldn't want him doin' it near the carnival_...

"Bein' the kind o' creature he was," Hawkins went on, "an' havin' so much wrong with him, he couldn't o' healed hisself by harmin' or even killin' Samson or Lodz - or both o' them. So he could let them near him, an' he wouldn't be tempted. But havin' _me_ near him woulda been a constant temptation. With me bein' his own kind, young an' healthy, he really could use me to heal hisself. He didn't want to risk givin' in to the temptation. That's why he kept tryin' to use Lodz - who'd known about our kind for a long time - to teach me, get me to accept my powers an' practice usin' them.

"Truth is, Management didn't like or trust Lodz. They'd had a fallin' out years back, when Lodz betrayed him by tryin' to cut a deal with someone else. But now he needed Lodz, an' Lodz saw a chance to get back on his good side, maybe displace Samson as carnival manager.

"You know, o' course, Lodz an' me didn't hit it off." His wry smile acknowledged that that was an understatement. "Maybe no one coulda got through to me any better - I'd already had a lot o' problems in life, an' all I wanted was to be left alone.

"So things weren't goin' well, from Lodz's point o' view. When he kept botherin' me, Ruthie stuck up for me an' gave him a hard time." For a moment, he turned away from Lila to give Ruthie an affectionate smile. "I reckon that made him see her as an enemy.

"Anyway, he came up with a plan. An idea he suggested to Management. He knew one thing Management wanted was to have me accept that I got the power to bring a dead person back to life, an' make the hard choice to kill someone else. Management thought there might be a time when I'd _need_ to do that - maybe, with the fate o' the world dependin' on what I'd do.

"So Lodz volunteered to kill Ruthie. To force me, he said, to go pick some worthless person to kill, to bring her back.

"Management still had a low opinion o' Lodz. He figured what Lodz had in mind was a situation where he couldn't lose. If I couldn't bring myself to kill anyone, he'd be rid o' Ruthie, once an' for all. If I did kill someone an' bring her back, he'd score points with Management for havin' got me to use my power.

"Management went along with the plan. But he saw it different...

"When I realized Ruthie was dead, I didn't know the snake had been in that bag o' mending. So when I got desperate, I went to Lodz an' asked him for help, like they'd figured I would. He took me to meet Management, for the first time. Management told me I'd have to kill someone. An' after I went off, tryin' to make myself pick a victim an' do it, he gave Lodz a 'reward.' Restored his eyesight."

"What?" Lila burst out. "_How?_ I mean, where did he get the - life, health, whatever?"

"He had enough skill with his powers that he could draw it from hisself," Hawkins explained, "without makin' his condition much worse than it already was.

"But he wasn't surprised when I came back, hours later, an' told him I couldn't kill anyone - if God had taken Ruthie, I didn't have the right to bring her back. He told me God had nothin' to do with it. Ruthie'd been murdered, by Lodz! If I doubted it, I should _look into Lodz's eyes_. Then I realized Lodz was wearin' his dark glasses, indoors, with no one there but us. I ripped them off, saw his eyes were clear - an' I could see in those eyes that he was guilty.

"So I strangled him. An' as he died, his eyes went glazed again. Management had drawn his life-force back into hisself.

"I understand now that _me killin' Lodz was the outcome he'd hoped for_. Lodz got what Management thought he deserved.

"He'd thought there were three other possible outcomes. But there'd really been four.

"The one he hadn't thought of? That I'd try to kill _myself_ to save Ruthie! _He _knew so well that self-sacrifice wouldn't work that it never occurred to him I wouldn't know. At one point I did decide to kill myself, went an' cut my jugular. But I realized, in time, that it wouldn't work - the person performin' the revival has to be around till it's done.

"I never told Management 'bout the close call I'd had. But knowin' his way o' thinkin' like I do now, I'm sure what he woulda done if I'd died. _He_ woulda killed Lodz, to save the innocent Ruthie. An' he woulda tried to bring me back - 'cause he thought I was so important - by findin' an' killin' someone who'd led a bad life."

He shook his head - seeming to think aloud, now, rather than address Lila. "But that wouldn't o' been easy for him. An' it may not be possible to revive a person who's chosen death, even for a reason like the one I had. He wouldn't o' known whether it was possible, so I don't know..."

Lila didn't like what _she_ was thinking. _Hawkins' bein' alive could really be important for the future o' the world? An' he might o' wound up dead, with no chance o' bringin' him back, 'cause of a selfish, irresponsible stunt Lodz was pullin'? My God!_

Turning his attention back to her, Hawkins continued, "One o' the outcomes he _had_ thought of was that I'd refuse in the end to kill anyone, even the murderer. If that had happened, he woulda killed Lodz. There was no way he woulda left Ruthie dead.

"Another possibility was that when I realized how much he must o' known all along, I'd try to kill, not Lodz, but _him!_ He wasn't prepared to die just then. But I was no threat to him. His powers were way more developed than mine, an' he coulda stopped me with a thought. I woulda had to settle for Lodz.

"The last possibility, o' course, was that I really would kill either another carny or some poor slob in town. If I'd done that, he woulda been disappointed in me, figured I needed more instruction in right an' wrong. But he woulda played fair with Lodz, let him keep his eyesight.

"He wasn't willin', though, to let the carnies know someone had performed a miracle for Lodz. So he'd told Lodz he'd have to leave. An' Lodz, knowin' he'd have his eyesight an' still have his psychic powers, didn't have the slightest objection to the idea of leavin' Carnivale. He'd promised Management he'd take off right away - without a word to _you_.

"I'm sorry, Lila. I know this hurts. But however the events o' that night turned out, you never woulda seen Lodz again."

x

x

x

For reasons she couldn't explain, Lila knew every word Hawkins had spoken was the truth.

Before she left the trailer, she wept, wailed, cursed - and was comforted by a teary-eyed Ruthie. Ruthie apparently felt a gut-level sense of solidarity with another woman; she actually turned on Hawkins, complaining, "Did you have to tell her _all_ that?"

His look of bewilderment at Ruthie's reproach was typically male.

Emboldened by that evidence of his humanity, Lila worked up the nerve to say, "Ben? I know I don't have no right to ask you for a favor. But could you please not tell the other carnies what a fool I've been?"

"You ain't been a fool, Lila," he said kindly. "I won't admit I killed Lodz - but no, I won't tell folks 'bout the mistake you made in trustin' him, either. I promise."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Earlier that day.**_

_"I'm sorry, Ben," Ruthie said humbly. "I didn't mean to upset you." It was bad enough that he had to endure constant pain._

_He was in bed, as usual - with no blanket over him, on this warm morning. Clad only in an oversized nightshirt of Gabe's, he seemed pitifully small and vulnerable._

_But he told her, "I ain't upset." And in fact, she realized, he sounded more confused than anything else._

_She frowned. "I'd forgotten this, till you started talkin' 'bout whether Justin Crowe is or ain't this thing called the Omega."_

_He said, in a bemused voice, "Our kind have believed, for thousands o' years, that the Tattooed Man, the Usher o' Destruction, an' the Omega are one an' the same. I'm sure Crowe's the Tattooed Man, an' I got no reason to doubt he's the Usher. But the Omega..." His voice trailed off._

_Ruthie, sitting beside the bed, took a quick look to make sure he was still awake. He slept much of the time; the pain left him exhausted. And he still hadn't recovered - if he ever would - from the blood loss he'd suffered in New Canaan._

_When she saw that he was merely lost in thought, she asked, "What is the Omega, anyway?"_

_He sighed. "It's supposed to be the last Avatar. End o' the line."_

_"H-how -?"_

_He looked up at her, as if trying to judge how much bad news she could take. Then he said, "Most people who know about this stuff have believed the Omega will be the most powerful Prophet o' Darkness, ever. If he defeats his opponent - which turns out to be __**me - **__he'll go on to" - he swallowed hard - "to destroy humanity."_

_At first, Ruthie was speechless. But then she pulled herself together and asked, "What if you defeat __**him?**__"_

_He made a face. "Some scholars have argued destiny won't permit the Prophet o' Light to win - because the human race is sinful, an' deserves to be destroyed._

_"But others don't hold with that. They claim this whole business with Avatars is a single battle in a war between God an' Satan. God an' Satan have agreed that if the Omega destroys humanity, Satan's won the battle. But there's a possibility the Prophet o' Light can succeed, even against this toughest-ever opponent. If he does, the battle will still be over - God will have won it - an' no more Avatars will be born._

_"There will still be evil on earth, still be sin. Just no conflict of Avatars. Maybe God an' Satan will have taken the war...elsewhere._

_"Lookin' at it that way, the time o' the Omega still means the end o' somethin'."_

_"Dear God," she whispered._

_She tried to be upbeat with Ben. But privately, she didn't believe he'd ever again be well enough to fight Crowe, or anyone else._

_Crowe had been dead - she had no doubt of that. But he'd resumed his radio sermons, and made some public appearances, since the notorious "riots" in New Canaan. If he was suffering any aftereffects, they didn't show._

_**It ain't fair, damn it! It ain't fair! **_

_She knew Ben was as bitter as she was. At least once a day, he threw a tantrum - raging against Crowe, against fate, against God Himself, till he wore himself out and could only weep._

_"But now," she prompted him, "you're havin' some different ideas 'bout the Omega?"_

_"Yeah." He pondered for a few seconds, then said, "The thing is, the only way I can explain Crowe's comin' back to life is that another Avatar revived him, by killin' someone else." Under pressure from Samson to get things out in the open, he'd already told her about that power of Avatars, and how he'd used it to save her. "But accordin' to all the rules, there can't be another Avatar alive now, less'n it's a son o' Crowe's! If there is a son, he'd have to be a Dark Avatar - if he was Light, I'd sense him as my Prince._

_"But logically, the Omega, the __**last**__, shouldn't have a Prince._

_"When I got to thinkin' 'bout that, it struck me that if you look at the language, an 'Usher o' Destruction' would be someone who __**ushers in **__Destruction. What if we've been wrong all this time, an' __**'Destruction'**__ is an actual separate person...the Omega?"_

_She saw a glimmer of hope. "What if you were just supposed to fight the Usher, an' it's your Prince - not born yet - who'll take on the Omega?"_

_But Ben shook his head, without lifting it off the pillow. "No. It's comin' to a finish, soon - I can sense that, just like Belyakov did. There ain't time for someone not born yet to deal with an Omega who's already old enough to be usin' his powers."_

_"__**His **__powers," she said thoughtfully, "or -?"_

_She'd feared she'd "upset" him when she told him about the strange message Lodz had written on her mirror._

_**"Sofie is the Omega. - L." **_

_"I know you want to believe Sofie's a good person," she said carefully. She'd seen him getting close to the girl, suspected they'd had sex. "I want that too."_

_**It's true, I want whatever he wants, even though I love him myself. I can't bear thinkin' o' him bein' hurt any more. **_

_But then she had to say, "Her shootin' Jonesy was mighty strange." Jonesy had caught up with the carnival, and told them his bizarre story, several weeks ago._

_"Yeah, I know." Ben sighed. "But remember, he'd thought o' two possibilities, an' it could be either one."_

_The innocent explanation was that Sofie had been so traumatized by what Crowe or his thugs had done to her that she didn't recognize her would-be rescuer: she would have struck out blindly against anyone, or at least any man._

_The other possible explanation was that she'd been in league with Crowe all along. In that scenario, Crowe had misled Samson into believing she was being held hostage, while she was really – voluntarily - acting as bait in a trap for Ben._

_Jonesy had been forced to hide out in New Canaan while he recuperated from the gunshot wound. He'd learned that Varlyn Stroud had died. And he'd caught glimpses of Sofie coming and going, certainly not being held prisoner. If anything, she seemed to have risen to a position of new importance after Stroud's death._

_To Ben, that proved only that Crowe had "won her over" again; perhaps, he'd been able to blame all her mistreatment on Stroud. _

_"Jonesy thought she looked strange, when she was shootin' him," Ruthie ventured. "Somethin' 'bout her eyes..."_

_"Yeah, but he admitted it coulda been a trick o' the moonlight." Sounding as if he wanted to bring the discussion to a close, Ben said firmly, "None o' that really matters. Not for this Omega question. All Avatars are male."_

_Ruthie said, "This is the twentieth century. Things are changin', women got the vote -" The instant the words were out of her mouth, she felt stupid for having implied there could be a parallel._

_Ben didn't take issue with what she'd said. But he pointed out, "By the rules I've learned, another livin' Avatar would have to be Crowe's child. How could Appy o' come in contact with a preacher - a divinity student, he woulda had to be then - from California?"_

_"I don't know. But it ain't impossible! No one with Carnivale's ever heard who Sofie's pa was. An' Crowe's gotta be old enough."_

_"Okay," Ben said, "look at it this way. Lodz an' me hated each other. An' in the end, I killed him. So why would his ghost want to give us a piece o' so-called information for any reason __**but **__hurtin' me, gettin' me riled up, an' settin' me on the wrong track?"_

_Ruthie had no answer for that._

_They brooded in silence for several minutes._

_Then Ben let out an oath, and began trying to sit up. Which he couldn't do, without help._

_Ruthie got her arms around him. "What's the matter?"_

_"I just had an idea," he told her. He didn't look happy about it. "I need to talk to Lila."_


	3. Chapter 3

_**After Lila's departure.**_

"You should get back into bed," Ruthie said anxiously. "You look beat. Will you be okay alone for a couple minutes, while I go find Gabe?"

Gabe would have to lift him from chair to bed, and help get him undressed.

But Ben shook his head. "No, don't bother Gabe. I just want to sit here an' think."

"Okay."

He looked not only "beat" but forlorn, and it was only with difficulty that she resisted the temptation to kiss him on the head...as she so often did when he was asleep.

But after she'd left him to his thoughts for five minutes, she _couldn't_ resist trying to draw him out. "Ben? I, ah, still don't understand. Did you really learn somethin' from Lila?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I did. Think about this, Ruthie.

"If Lodz had thought it was important I get that message, I can't see him relyin' on just you rememberin' it, an' realizin' it was me you should tell. Don't it seem likely he woulda told Lila, too - when he was visitin' her, talkin' to her, anyway? So he could say more, actually tell someone who the message was meant for?"

"Y-yeah." She hadn't thought of that, but she had to agree it made sense. "Lila coulda been lyin' to you -"

"I don't think so. She had no way o' knowin' whether my powers include recognizin' a lie. An' she wanted me to give _her_ truthful answers, so she probably woulda been straight with me.

"An' besides that...I know you said the message was sort o' printed, not written in script. But even so, how likely is it a blind person could write all that, neat an' readable? On a mirror, usin' lipstick?"

"It wouldn't o' been easy," she said slowly. "Lodz owned a Braille typewriter, warn't never known to _write _anythin' more than his name.

"An', Ben - I ain't sure where this is goin', but I just thought o' somethin' else that was odd. The name 'Sofie' was spelled with an _f_."

"Spelled with an _f_?" he repeated. "Ain't it spelled 'S-O-P-H-I-E'?"

"No," she told him, "Sofie really does spell it 'S-O-F-I-E.' I asked her about it once, an' she said her mama told her that was the Gypsy spelling.

"The thing is, over the years, I've seen her write it, an' seen lists, o' various kinds, of all the folks with the carnival. How would a blind person know she don't spell it the usual way? Her an' Lodz was never chummy, an' I can't think why Appy woulda mentioned it to him.

"But still, that message _did_ get on the mirror. An' when I woke up, there was lipstick on my fingers. Do you think some livin' person snuck in my trailer an' did all that, without wakin' me?" Her voice had been rising; she found that possibility more scary than a long-since-departed ghost.

"No," Ben said quietly. "But I do think we've been makin' some wrong assumptions.

"You saw other ghosts durin' them first weeks after I brought you back, not just Lodz. I thought he was able to possess you 'cause I'd exchanged his life for yours. But maybe it wasn't that at all. Maybe the only difference between his ghost an' the ghost o' some old pal o' yours was that he understood what was goin' on...knew he was dead...had experience with psychic stuff.

"I wish it _was_ him left that message, so I wouldn't have to believe it.

"But...what I think now, Ruthie, is that on that one night, _another_ dead person was possessin' you. Someone who wasn't blind. Who'd seen lists o' carnies' names. Who didn't know what Lodz had been doin' to you, an' never imagined you'd think the message was from him.

"Someone who'd learned things when he reached the other side, an' truly wanted to help me."

He looked miserable. She could tell he didn't want to go on.

But she needed to know. So she took his hand, and said gently, "Please tell me, Ben. _Who?_"

He said slowly, "Someone who expected that by now, after...the last thing that happened between us...I'd feel like his equal. Think o' him by his first name.

"Management. Belyakov.

"That letter _L_ didn't stand for 'Lodz.' It stood for 'Lucius.' "

x

x

x

The End


End file.
